Meal Planning for Grocery Shopping (with a Sample Week's Plan!)

When money is tight, it is more important than ever to prevent waste. You can work to reduce your utility use, increase your gas mileage, or reduce your cable package, but other important places to examine are your shopping cart and your refrigerator. With a little forward planning, you can maximize your benefit and minimize your budget.

Begin with one meal each week that you are sure you want to prepare. List the ingredients you will need to purchase to make that dinner. Buying in larger quantities can save money over the long run, and sometimes doesn't cost that much more in the short term. In my family, having the same meal twice in one week won't fly, unless we're having yummy leftovers. Now my husband and I think of other ways to use the same ingredients and bring a new flavor to the table.

A favorite meal for my family is pork roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions. We purchase several pork loins at a time when they are on sale and freeze all but the one we will prepare that week. We purchase potatoes in a five-pound bag, unless the ten-pound bag is a significantly better deal. Occasionally the larger package is only one dollar more. When that happens though, we have to make sure that we aren't going to waste those extra potatoes. The same is true for carrots and onions. We will buy a smaller package as long as it isn't unreasonable to do so. If the larger bag is a much better buy, we get it and adjust our meals for the week. When we found this happening more frequently (that the bigger bag was not much more expensive), we began to plan for the bigger bag and now we make a flexible meal plan.

With ingredients for a pork roast purchased, we have extra potatoes, carrots, and onions. In our meal plan, we include meals that will use them up. One day we may list a beef stew; another day will feature baked potatoes and steamed carrots; the next week may include one night of fried potatoes and onions. Now we add the appropriate amount of beef to the grocery list, for the stew and inexpensive steaks (minute steaks, chopped steak) for the fried potato dinner. We do not care for beef that has been frozen and thawed, so we always purchase exactly the amount we need and no more. Frozen chicken is completely different, however, and we buy chicken as frozen boneless skinless breasts. It is more expensive than buying a whole chicken, but my family won't eat anything but white meat, so a whole chicken would be a waste for me.

At this point, I have four meals planned with sides, although I would probably add some broccoli or another green vegetable to the chicken and steak meals. Fresh or frozen broccoli (as you prefer) is relatively inexpensive and adds terrific nutrition. Both can be portioned as your family will eat them, although fresh will go bad much faster. Canned green beans can be flavored with a little bacon, onion, and seasoning and are generally appealing for small children. They also do not spoil, and so are a good value.

Even after these four meals, I will have some chicken, a few carrots, and several onions left. That sounds like chicken pot pie to me, which uses cream soup and biscuit mix. If I'm going to purchase a box of biscuit mix, I will make sure I add biscuits to several other meals too. I can also add a pancake breakfast (or dinner - that's fun too), and make some of the bacon I bought to flavor the green beans. For the last few onions and any potatoes that are left, I can dice or slice it all and make an oven potato dish in aluminum foil to serve with my pancakes and bacon.

Six meals down, one to go in my plan. The bag of frozen chicken breasts has not yet been exhausted, so I will add a chicken bake to my list. I can use some rice and the rest of the broccoli, plus another can of cream soup. The rice is a staple that we keep in the pantry all the time because it lasts forever and is cheap. There is no need for me to use it all up in this plan. I'll also make some biscuits to round out the meal.

At this point, our diet has been starch and protein heavy. I would go back and add some vegetables to various meals to ensure we are getting plenty of vitamins. Fresh vegetables can be expensive out of season, so you should consider prices before buying. In the fall, squash are popular and several varieties can be found cheaply. They can be grilled or baked, after slicing and tossing them in a little oil, salt, and pepper. If bell peppers are within your budget, add them to your list. They can be added to the steak dinner for flavor, roasted as a vegetable side, or chopped into eggs, a fresh salad, or fried or oven potatoes.

While I'm planning, I can look ahead to the next week as well. If I have peppers or onions left over, I will add tacos to the next week's dinner plan. I will need to purchase ground beef and can buy the bulk 5-pound package and divide it into freezer bags of one-pound each. With this much ground beef, I can plan a pot of chili, spaghetti or lasagna night, meatloaf, or all of the above. Again I will keep in mind the extra ingredients I will purchase (crackers - double duty in chili and meatloaf; shredded cheddar - for chili plus make a salad on spaghetti night using the vegetables left from taco night) and make plans to use them before they go bad.

I make a habit to utilize freezer space to its fullest as well. When making lasagna or meatloaf, we make extra in freezable containers (the foil disposable ones work well and are reusable) and make portions that are exact for us. Instead of baking one big pan of lasagna or meatloaf and having leftovers to store in the refrigerator, and eat quickly, we make several loaf-sized pans which are equivalent to our family portion, then bake one and freeze the rest. Then we can apportion them from the freezer when we want them, and still use up the entire box of lasagna noodles, sauce, cheese, etc., that we purchased.

In the past, we have also used this method when on vacation. We found a great last-minute deal on a condo with a kitchen, and purchased groceries at our destination. By planning ahead, we were able to use all the groceries we bought, leaving nothing behind, bringing nothing back with us, and throwing nothing away. We saved loads of money by not eating out at expensive restaurants or fast food places, had great food, and made great memories while cooking together.

The plan I outlined above does not take into account leftovers because we try to ensure we make the amount of food we are going to eat at each meal. If we do have leftovers, we repackage them into lunch-sized containers to take to work or find ways to reuse them. For example, my husband makes a terrific taco dip with taco leftovers and a can of refried beans. We use leftover chili on hot dogs, or make a chili bake with cornbread on top. The key is to make food your family will love, or you will encounter waste in a different way, scraping uneaten food from the plates into the trash.